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Teaching Trunks

The Florida Holocaust Museum invites you to use our dynamic trunk curriculum to teach the lessons of the Holocaust. These large teaching trunks, available free of charge, are designed to accommodate the needs of one class or a team of teachers. The materials have been carefully selected to make sure they are appropriate for students at each grade level.

Florida’s Holocaust Education Mandate requires all school districts to incorporate lessons on the Holocaust as part of public school instruction. The Florida Holocaust Museum, a service provider contracted by the Florida Department of Education, invites you to use our dynamic literature-based lessons about the Holocaust, genocide and character education. These large teaching trunks are designed to accommodate the needs of one class or a team of teachers. The selected materials are grade and age appropriate. The focus has been carefully developed to create a spiraling educational approach that builds upon each previous year.

Loan periods are for one month to six weeks and are available to public, private and parochial schools throughout the continental U.S. and are available at no cost to the teacher or school.

With questions about the teaching trunks, please send a query to trunks@thefhm.org. To reserve a trunk, fill out a form available in the upper left-hand corner of this page.

What’s inside?

Literature circle

Videos

Read-aloud selections

CD-Roms

Picture books

Student and teacher reference and resource materials. At the middle and high school levels teaching poster sets have been included.

Curriculum guides

The curriculum guides included have been specifically created for each grade level and are tailored to the trunk materials. The curricula focus on:

Integration of subject areas

Cooperative learning

Multiple intelligences

Emphasis on reading and writing skills

Each guide includes an introduction and rationale for the trunk and its focus, pedagogical connections, explanations and integration of trunk literature, resources, student and teacher references and professional articles.

What is the focus of each grade level?

1st-2nd grade: Different and the Same

This trunk features a video series with related literature on awareness, fairness, understanding, respect and tolerance education.

3rd-4th grade: Creating Community

Here students begin to examine the issues at the root of all Holocaust education: immigration, prejudice, families, community and cultural identity.

5th grade: Beginning Holocaust Studies

This trunk introduces students to the importance of learning from history, in particular, the socio-political and historical context in which the Holocaust took place. There is an emphasis on children, resourcefulness and creativity. Materials include:
The Night Crossing, Talking Walls, Jacob’s Rescue and Immigrant Kids. [3rd-5th and 6th-12th grade multi-grade trunks are available]

Middle School: Investigating Human Behavior

The trunk focuses on the choices individuals and groups made during the Holocaust. It examines the bystander, perpetrator, victim and rescuer and how their choices affected their lives and the lives of others. Materials include: USHMM teaching posters, Smoke and Ashes, Not in Our Town and Anne Frank.

High School: Historical Perspectives of the Holocaust

This material covers the examination of the historical impact of the Holocaust on individuals. Materials include: USHMM poster set, Voices and Views: A History of the Holocaust, class and group sets of literature.

Our Newest Trunks...

Arts Trunk:

Elementary
Discover the opportunities to integrate powerful messages by images, music and performance. Explore the themes of the Holocaust, character education, genocide studies and human behavior through the arts. The lessons discuss artwork and are designed for art as well as all other classes. The trunk offers resources and recommended lesson ideas.

Human Rights and Genocide Trunk:

Middle and High School
This trunk takes the theme of “never again” and depicts the work of “ever again.” The secondary trunk has information on the Declaration of Human Rights as it applies to situations past and present. Opportunities to explore human behavior from the standpoint of bystander, victim, perpetrator, rescuer and upstander are illustrated. Explore the Armenian genocide, Cambodia, Rwanda and The Balkans, as well as HR issues in South Africa and the Japanese American Internment.

“I would share this teaching material with my colleagues and absolutely recommend the teaching trunks…it has enhanced the unit of study.”Teacher from Citrus County

“The Teaching Trunk material was practical, complete and easy to use.”Teacher from Citrus County

Teaching trunks underwritten in part by:

Florida Department of Education, State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, Division of Historical Resources Grants-in-Aid Program, the Florida Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the United States Department of Justice and Juvenile Delinquency Prevention, the Saunders Foundation and Publix Super Markets Charities and people like you. DONATE HERE to help send a teaching trunk to classrooms throughout the U.S.